I'm well aware that Soviet Russia guided us.

Post #427,704 by mmoffitt 2/25/19 2:33:56 PM 2/25/19 2:33:56 PM Reply	I'm well aware that Soviet Russia guided us. The point remains, however, that it should not be the President who implements large policies. He's supposed to inspire us to do great things. And if you believe throwing out the current system and replacing it with some form of MFA is "hard", you've been drinking the corporate kool-aid entirely too long. The details of doing it are, comparably, trivial. The only thing that makes it difficult is the current system's entrenched profiteer class and their out-sized political clout. Just as Klobachar's "We can't afford free college tuition!" is plainly false, MFA can be done iff we make it as large a priority as we did slashing the unearned income tax rate, or the bank bailout or the most recent tax cuts. Pounding hell out of the idea by nitpicking details only furthers the efforts of those currently gaming the existing system (at great expense to us all). HTH. bcnu, Mikem It's mourning in America again.
Post #427,706 by Another Scott 2/25/19 3:35:43 PM 2/25/19 3:35:43 PM Reply	Re: I'm well aware that Soviet Russia guided us. The only thing that makes it difficult is the current system's entrenched profiteer class and their out-sized political clout. And the 13.09 M people employed* in heath care (as of May 2017) - https://www.kff.org/other/state-indicator/total-health-care-employment/?currentTimeframe=0&sortModel=%7B%22colId%22:%22Location%22,%22sort%22:%22asc%22%7D * - Health Care Employment includes the following occupations from the Bureau of Labor Statistics' Standard Occupational Classification System: Medical and Health Services Managers, Healthcare Practitioners and Technical Occupations, Healthcare Support Occupations, and Community Health Workers. And the hundreds of thousands to low millions who work in the various aspects of the health insurance industry - https://www.iii.org/sites/default/files/employment-030118.pdf (14 page .pdf). Ignoring the concerns of ~ 15M people doesn't make their concerns go away. Just as Klobachar's "We can't afford free college tuition!" is plainly false, ... Citation needed. An actual expert (who works in one of the UC systems: 95 🚸 Martin says: April 10, 2016 at 8:46 pm @Miss Bianca: Is it actually feasible under any circumstances, or are certain candidates just blowing smoke up people’s…noses? Well, the community college plan is more feasible than Bernies, simply because the community college capacity is huge and isn’t nearly as overburdened. Expanding it to meet demand would be hard, but not impossible. The hitch is getting the states on board – and good luck with that. Even the blue states aren’t investing. Alternatively, the feds could dump money in, but I don’t see that being sustainable. But consider the math here for the public research universities. My institution gets 8% of our funding from the state. If you increased the state contribution by 50%, our budget goes up by 4%. That’s not going to enroll 50% more students, not without a change in what a research university means to the country. And we’re the most heavily impacted by demand. You make public universities free, and suddenly we’ll get swamped by students that are currently opting over to the private university system. Adding those students into the public system, and suddenly we’re going to wind up turning down the students at the margins of our admission pool – and they’re nearly 50% under-represented and majority are low income and first generation. Free tuition to Berkeley means a lot of rich and middle class kids get a free ride and a lot of low income and first generation students get denied. Slogans aren't real-world policies that actually have a chance of working. Life is complicated, and more complicated now than it was when college was nearly free for our parents and grand parents. You can't just flip a switch and make those complications go away. HTH. Cheers, Scott.
Post #427,707 by mmoffitt 2/25/19 3:56:06 PM 2/25/19 4:02:06 PM Reply	"For our parents or grandparents"? How old are you? Six? It was tuition-free for me in 1977 at Long Beach Community College (as I've claimed elsewhere). Back then, Governor Reagan fought hard for tuition (being the Neo-Nazi Fascist he was), but failed. You want a "source" better than first hand? Fine. How about the NY Times from December 28, 1982? Emphasis Mine. California's public system of higher education, long the envy of many other states, is edging toward acceptance of something even Ronald Reagan, as Governor, could not force upon it: tuition. ... The no-tuition concept was embodied in the state's 1960 Master Plan for Higher Education, which established a three-tier system of free public higher education and led to vast expansion. The system grew to include nine campuses of the University of California, which accepts the highest achievers among high school graduates; 19 campuses of the California State University system, whose admission standards are less restrictive, and 106 two-year community colleges. The new recommendation, by an advisory body to the Legislature and Governor, to a large extent addresses a semantic paradox left over from Mr. Reagan's eight years as Governor, ending in 1975. Mr. Reagan fought hard in the Legislature to impose tuition at four-year colleges. He lost the battle to lobbyists for the university, who have long been among the most powerful in Sacramento. https://www.nytimes.com/1982/12/28/science/california-weighs-end-of-free-college-education.html The world DID NOT start in 1983. HTH. bcnu, Mikem It's mourning in America again. Edited by mmoffitt Feb. 25, 2019, 04:02:06 PM EST Expand All History
Post #427,708 by Another Scott 2/25/19 6:51:41 PM 2/25/19 6:51:41 PM Reply	Heh. California had a great public college system for a very long time. But they charge tuition now, like just about everywhere else. (Princeton recently stopped charging tuition and room&board to qualified students - just about everyone accepted with income < $160,000 gets full freight.) My dad went to Emory and the U of Chicago. He had to pay a nominal amount for tuition at those private schools (a few hundred a quarter, I think). It wasn't free, but it wasn't anywhere near as expensive as now and it was manageable with part time and summer jobs. The point is, we can't easily go back to those days of nearly free 4-year universities (as Martin points out, community colleges are a different matter). There are lots and lots of reasons why (universities being addicted to foreign students that pay full-freight; lack of space and facilities; issues with diversity ("Why should the 1% get full freight?" is a good question with lots of reasonable answers); etc. "Free college" now is snake oil. The problem with college isn't that it's not free, it's that it is so off-the-chart expensive in too many cases. Having kids work 10-20 hours a week and a few weeks in the summer to pay for college is fine. Having them $100k+ in debt for 10-20 years is not. That's why "debt free college" was, and is, a sensible approach. My $0.02. Cheers, Scott.
Post #427,719 by mmoffitt 2/26/19 8:07:36 AM 2/26/19 8:07:37 AM Reply	A primary problem with college today is the idiotic notion that everyone should attend. bcnu, Mikem It's mourning in America again.
Post #427,720 by Another Scott 2/26/19 8:34:52 AM 2/26/19 8:34:52 AM Reply	Why shouldn't people go to college? Our brains don't stop developing until we're ~ 25. Life is much, much more complicated now than it was 100 years ago. Why isn't 2-4 more years of school a good thing? (Note that I'm including some trade schools, on the job training, apprenticeships, etc., in this discussion. Whatever you want to call it, people need to be learning in formal settings past the age of 18.) "Hey, grandpa left school in the 6th grade so that's good enough for me!!" >:-p But you're moving the goal posts - you don't honestly think that "free college" would cause huge problems for 4-year universities? Cheers, Scott.
Post #427,721 by mmoffitt 2/26/19 9:45:06 AM 2/26/19 9:45:06 AM Reply	I don't think "free" and "free tuition" are the same thing. And, no, I don't think "free" in any case necessarily causes problems for four year schools. Provided, of course, only fit applicants are allowed into university. With respect to trade schools, union halls, apprenticeships, etc. I think we're on the same page and I'm of the firm view that only about 15-20% or Muricans are qualified university applicants. The rest can join a union, become an apprentice, go to a trade school or what have you. There's no reason for them to be occupying space in a university. bcnu, Mikem It's mourning in America again.
Post #427,723 by drook 2/26/19 10:27:37 AM 2/26/19 10:27:37 AM Reply	You'd like Mike Rowe He's a huge fan of trade schools and apprenticeships, and the idea that "college" should be reserved for the qualified. He's also funded by the Koch brothers. It's possible they may have arrived at their views via reasoning somewhat different from yours. I wonder what criteria they'd use to identify "qualified" applicants. -- Drew
Post #427,724 by mmoffitt 2/26/19 11:19:05 AM 2/26/19 11:19:05 AM Reply	I came to my view by being a TA. It is both stunning and alarming how many students are admitted to four year colleges and universities in this country who have not mastered high school algebra. You'd be amazed. bcnu, Mikem It's mourning in America again.
Post #427,726 by Another Scott 2/26/19 1:50:34 PM 2/26/19 1:50:34 PM Reply	"Is the wavelength of light bigger than a breadbox?"* You'd be amazed by all kinds of things. That doesn't mean that people don't learn at and benefit from college. Cheers, Scott * - that supposedly was a PhD oral exam question that someone had trouble with... :-/
Post #427,729 by Ashton 2/27/19 12:02:46 AM 2/27/19 12:03:20 AM Reply	Das Deutschers ..properly? call it a Wissenschafft Knowledge Factory; much can be extrapolated from the sense that: not Everyone IS really in search of that "liberal education" idea--so Many are in-it-for-the-Future-Money--and That's All! for a group as larges as you wish to 'define'. Some folks imagineer that: being force-fed a variety of emotionally-sound Ideas--into a confirmed-Racist or Xen ophobe ..or just plain materialist-folk: they'd Change. (More words would be superfluous, if this isn't a q.e.d.) ;^> Edited by Ashton Feb. 27, 2019, 12:03:20 AM EST Expand All History

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